Chapter 8 - THE PRICE OF A THRONE
The boardroom occupied the top floor of a glass tower overlooking the Chicago River.
Enzo had once told me the building was his father's proudest purchase. It looked impressive from a distance, all steel and polished stone. Up close, on the morning of Dominic's emergency meeting, it looked like a place built for people who wanted to see everyone else as small.
I hadn't planned to be there. I was supposed to be attending a consultation about training courses in archive preservation. But Detective Ortiz asked whether I would identify a photograph of Felix entering the estate's service wing, and the investigator handling that evidence was working out of an office in the same building. My advocate came with me.
Enzo didn't ask me to attend the meeting. I would have refused if he had. His war with Dominic wasn't mine to fight.
Even so, I saw Dominic through the glass wall of the main conference room. He was in his sixties, silver-haired, with an expensive charcoal suit and a gold ring on his little finger. He sat in the chair at the head of the table as though he'd been born there.
Enzo stood opposite him, Rebecca Sloan beside him. Several board members were already studying documents in thick black folders.
"I built this company with your father," Dominic said loudly enough for the door to carry his voice into the corridor. "You are destroying it over the word of a frightened woman and a child you barely know."
Enzo didn't raise his voice.
"The frightened woman is the mother of my daughter. The child is my daughter. And you had six years to tell me the truth."
A security officer shut the door.
My advocate guided me toward the elevator. "You don't need to hear that."
She was right. But the last sentence followed me down the hall.
Dominic had filed papers challenging Enzo's authority over several subsidiary companies, alleging financial misconduct and instability. He also threatened to use the family's reputation against Enzo in custody proceedings. His lawyers framed the issue as protecting shareholders. Ortiz framed it as possible witness intimidation.
The difference mattered.
Before noon, federal investigators arrived with warrants for business records. The officers did not burst through the boardroom like actors in a movie. They presented documents, identified the offices to be searched, and began collecting files and electronic evidence. Dominic's attorneys argued. Investigators answered without hurry.
I watched from the reception area as employees whispered behind their hands.
Enzo came out and stopped when he saw me.
"I didn't know you were here."
"I came for an identification. I'm leaving."
He nodded, then glanced at my advocate. "Thank you for coming with her."
"She asked me," the woman replied. "That's my job."
Enzo looked back at me. "Dominic knows that Mia is protected now. He won't get close to her."
"He knew exactly where she was yesterday," I said. "Don't tell me what he can't do. Tell me what you're doing to stop him."
"I've given Ortiz the photograph and the number it came from. They're tracing it. June and Mia have moved to another secure location. I'm meeting with the prosecutors again this afternoon."
"Good."
He took a breath. "I've also stepped back from day-to-day control of the freight companies while an independent administrator reviews the books."
That surprised me.
"Voluntarily?"
"With some encouragement from Sloan."
"She sounds smart."
"She is. She also scares me more than Dominic."
I almost smiled.
Then a shout came from inside the boardroom. Dominic emerged, flanked by his lawyer. He spotted Enzo, then saw me.
His expression sharpened with recognition.
"The housemaid," he said. "You've made quite a career out of an accident."
I felt my advocate tense beside me.
"My name is Ruby Ellis," I said. "The accident was a painting falling. The other injuries were assault. You might want to learn the difference."
A flush climbed Dominic's neck.
He took one step toward me. Two security officers blocked the way, directing him back to his counsel. His lawyer urged him not to speak. Dominic glared past them at Enzo.
"You've always been sentimental," he said. "Your father understood that family is a business before anything else."
Enzo looked directly at him.
"Then my father was wrong about that. And so are you."
The elevator arrived. I went down without another word, my heart pounding so hard I could feel it in my stitches.
In the afternoon, police located Felix Rourke at a motel outside Rockford. They found him because he'd used a prepaid phone purchased with a rewards account registered under his real name. He was caught without a struggle, though the room contained a bag of cash and a second passport that investigators later said was fraudulent.
Felix agreed to speak after his lawyer arrived. His first demand was protection from Dominic. His second was that officers stop searching for an accomplice who, he claimed, had never known why the child was being transported.
"Who was the accomplice?" I asked Ortiz when she updated us.
"A driver used for one of the transfers. We're verifying his account."
"Did Felix put the bird in Sophie's locker?"
"He says he asked another man to do it. We have evidence that may corroborate part of the story."
"Why threaten my family?"
"He says Dominic ordered him to pressure you into retracting your statement and stop helping us identify the old car."
Sophie crossed her arms. "Well, that went badly for them."
Dad laughed, a short, rusty sound that made us all turn.
"Yes," he said clearly. "Very badly."
That night, after dinner, the three of us sat around a table covered with puzzle pieces. We'd started the puzzle as a way to make the evenings ordinary. It showed an old lighthouse beside a rough blue sea. Dad sorted edge pieces, Sophie hunted for sky, and I worked on the narrow white stairs leading to the lantern room.
My phone rang. It was June.
"Mia wants to tell you something," she said. "She's been practicing all day."
A moment later Mia came on the line.
"Ruby, I told Enzo I wanted him at my birthday."
"That sounds like a big decision."
"It is. June said I can change my mind. But I don't want to change it right now."
"That's wonderful."
"Can you come? You don't have to bring a present. I have lots of books."
I looked at Dad, who was pretending not to listen while holding a puzzle piece upside down.
"I would love to, if June says it's okay."
"She does," Mia announced. "I asked her first."
After the call, I sat quietly for a long time. Mia had been the center of a conspiracy before she'd learned to read. Yet she was still capable of a small, confident choice: she wanted two people at her birthday party.
I decided that was worth protecting, even if my role in her life never became more than a friendly face at the edge of a room.
Near midnight, Ortiz called again. Felix had provided the location of an off-site archive where Dominic stored original company ledgers and documents related to the maternity clinic. Investigators were preparing a search. The building was an old print shop scheduled for demolition in two weeks.
"There may be proof of the threats against Claire," Ortiz said. "And financial records tying Bell and Dominic to the abduction."
"Will you call when it's done?"
"If we can share an update. Try to sleep."
But sleep wouldn't come.
At 2:11 a.m., sirens woke us. From the apartment window, I could see the orange glow of a fire to the west, reflected against low clouds. A local news alert said crews were battling flames at a vacant industrial building.
The address was the old print shop.
I phoned Ortiz. She didn't answer.
I called Enzo. He picked up on the second ring.
"I saw the fire," I said.
"The police were already there when it started. Everyone is accounted for."
"The evidence?"
"They're trying to save it."
He paused, and I heard the distant echo of emergency radios.
"Ruby, Dominic wasn't at his house when officers came to question him. He's missing."
"Does Mia know?"
"No. She doesn't need to carry his choices."
We stayed on the line without speaking. I thought of the little girl making yellow paper birds in a locked room, trying to send a message to someone who might never see it.
Then Enzo said, "Whatever happens next, I'm not letting him turn her childhood into a battlefield again."
I looked at Dad and Sophie asleep on the couch, their puzzle spread across the table. The corner pieces were almost finished. One section of the lighthouse still had an empty square where the door should be, and for some reason I couldn't stop looking at that gap.
I remembered the original envelope under the shattered frame, how close I had come to obeying Serena and walking away without it. Not because I approved of her cruelty, but because I had been frightened of losing the house Dad had worked so hard to keep. There was no heroic music when I chose to speak. I had been shaking and bleeding and almost certain somebody would punish me.
May you like
Now the people who had tried to silence us were being forced to answer questions in rooms where they couldn't simply order everyone out. That was not an ending. But it was a reason to keep going.
"Then make sure you keep that promise the hard way," I said. "With the truth, not revenge."
